Is Atheism Rational?

In his new book A Shot of Faith to the Head, Mitch Stokes impales the “New Atheist” on the sword of his own logic. From logic the atheist argues for atheism. He references absolute values like Justice to make his case. For example, he argues that theism has created pain and suffering throughout world history. But if there is no God there is just chance. There are no absolutes. Neither mercy nor cruelty matter. Suffering has no intrinsic value. All that matters, as Mao famously said, is power proceeding from the barrel of a gun. Without absolutes justice disappears. That is because justice is the measurement of behavior on the basis of absolutes.

Here is a sampling of Stoke’s logic.

“The notions of design, rationality, and absolute standards cannot exist in a naturalistic world, in the world of the atheists. Without absolute standards—of which there must be many—their worldview would entirely collapse. And this poses a serious problem for any atheist who claims that belief in God is irrational. In fact, it takes the legs right out from under such a claim. If there is no designer, then there is no proper function, and therefore there is no such thing as irrationality. But then there’s no such thing as rationality either. There’s only a sterile, impersonal “desert landscape.” Beliefs are neither rational nor irrational. They just are. But if the Christian story is true, then there is such a thing as irrationality. And as we saw, those who don’t believe in God are from it.”[1]here is the bottom line. The Atheist must use theistic presuppositions to argue for atheism. He is impaled on the horns of a theistic dilemma.

1 Comment

Steve Lady
on August 29, 2012 at 11:16 pm

I like how Ravi Zacharias puts it:”When you say there's too much evil in this world you assume there's good. When you assume there's good, you assume there's such a thing as a moral law on the basis of which to differentiate between good and evil. But if you assume a moral law, you must posit a moral Law Giver, but that's Who you're trying to disprove and not prove. Because if there's no moral Law Giver, there's no moral law. If there's no moral law, there's no good. If there's no good, there's no evil. What is your question?”